Flight 143
by leighbenz9000
Summary: "She knows the statistic. 9 million to 1. There's a one in nine million chance that a person goes down in a plane. Percy is not that one. He can't be." Percabeth AU. Rated T.


There are lots of phone calls you want to get. There are phone calls telling you that your two best friends are engaged. There are phone calls telling you that the baby was born and it's a girl. There are phone calls whispering _I love you _at 3am between lovers.

There are also phone calls that destroy you.

When Annabeth gets this phone call, she's picking up laundry off of her bedroom floor. She's slightly annoyed because, goddammit, she asked Percy to pick up his stuff before he left and of course he didn't.

He never listens to her.

It's a typical Saturday morning, and Annabeth is trying to get the apartment in decent condition for the wedding planner. She never really understood what was so horrible about planning weddings, until the bakery people got her cake order wrong three times. Three times. That fact alone makes her want to blow up. She swears that some people might just have more seaweed in their brains than even Percy does. "_Yellow cake soaked in Kahlua liqueur and fresh espresso, topped with Kahlua buttercream and sprinkled with dark chocolate shavings" _should not be that hard to remember.

Maybe she's just a bit stressed. Only a bit. And the apartment already seems quiet without his brilliant remarks every few seconds, like the one about how Suzanne Collins really should have thought of the ship name before she called her characters Peeta and Katniss. He had a good laugh over that one for a while.

Rachel called earlier to ask _"what kind of husband-to-be goes on a business trip one month before the wedding?"_

Annabeth isn't mad though, because she and Percy tend to agree on most of the wedding planning stuff, which is apparently shocking to some other couples that they've talked to. Maybe it's just more of the fact that Percy agrees to whatever Annabeth decides. No difference.

Plus, Percy won't be gone for long— just a short trip to California for some Wildlife and Conservation meeting. It isn't a big deal. Annabeth is sort of excited for Percy to be there and back all in a matter of a few days, though she would never tell him that she misses him and his big mess at the house. She doesn't tell him that she sleeps on his side of the bed when he's gone. Nope. That's ridiculous.

She's picking up the last of Percy's socks—grinning because they're these ridiculous green and red Christmas ones that she got him as a joke—when the phone rings. She stands up, stretches her back because it's a bit stiff from being hunched over for so long, and looks at the caller ID.

WIRELESS CALLER. JACKSON.

She frowns because Percy had just called her a little under an hour ago to tell her that he would be boarding in a few minutes. The forecast had predicted rain, though, so she looks outside the window to see if the weather had changed and the flight is delayed.

Nothing. It's still sunny.

"Hey," she says, picking up the phone and tucking it in between her neck and her shoulder, "I can't believe the weather is that bad over there, because it's, like, gorgeous over here." She opens the window and sticks her head out, straining her neck to see if there are any storm clouds, but the sky is perfectly clear in all directions.

"Annabeth?" the voice at the other end of the line asks, but Annabeth can hardly make it out because the reception is so bad.

"Who else would it be, Seaweed Brain?" Annabeth replies, closing the window and clearing all the junk off of the coffee table. "And where are you? I can hardly hear because you keep going in and out. Try standing somewhere else."

"Annabeth," Percy says again. He sounds sort of sick, "Annabeth, you know I love you, right?"

"I would sure hope so, since we're getting married in a month," Annabeth replies, though her stomach sort of does this weird bubbly thing.

"I love you more than anything. I would be nothing without you. You're perfect; you're the love of my life. There's no one on the entire planet like you, you know that, right?"

The voice on the other end of the line sounds dead. Lifeless.

"What's wrong?" Annabeth asks, her heart rate jumping from normal to explosive. "Where are you?"

She hears a scream on the other end, accompanied by this horrible retching noise. It sounds like someone is sobbing.

"_Percy_," she repeats, her voice seemingly small and empty, "is that someone crying?"

"You know I wanted us to grow old together, Annabeth. To have kids. We were going to have a family. We were going to give them everything. I was going to teach them how to swim. You were going to make them the smartest kids in the world. It was going to be—"

"Can you _please _tell me what's going on?" Annabeth asks, her voice urgent, though the feeling in her stomach tells her that she doesn't really want to know.

"The plane—" Percy begins, "the plane is—"

Annabeth's head disconnects from her feet. She feels like she's floating. The only thing keeping her from fainting are the horrible screams coming out of her mouth, so awful and scary that she thinks it must not be her making them. She can't be screaming like that. She can't. People just don't make that sort of noise.

She hears the voice at the end of the line. It's still talking to her. She grips the phone as hard as she possibly can, clutching the only thing connecting her and Percy.

She hears his voice louder now, through the blood pounding in her ears. His voice creaks, sounds metallic. It's not _him_. She only has a few seconds left with Percy and all she gets is a robotic voice at the end of the line. She wants him. His soft hands. His big green eyes. His blood coursing through his veins, steady and strong. His voice lulling her nightmares away.

She starts screaming again.

He tells her it will be okay. She'll be okay. _They'll_ be okay. He tells her that he'll always be with her, no matter what. He promises her that eventually she'll find happiness.

Part of her realizes that Percy is comforting her, while he's the one going down in the plane. Part of her thinks death would be better than this.

She bites her cheek so hard it draws blood.

He starts rambling, telling her little things. How he loves her face in the morning, how he thinks it's funny when she's frustrated, how he never told her that he dropped her sushi once when he was walking out of the Japanese restaurant but gave it to her anyways. Stupid things.

She wants to tell him the same— that she loves him— but her voice is gone, somewhere along with her sanity. Plus, he knows.

Surely he knows.

Eventually the line goes dead. Annabeth doesn't even realize that he stopped talking until the bangs on the door of her apartment and calls from concerned neighbors make her head stop floating in the clouds. She notices she's curled up on the floor. She doesn't remember how she got there.

At some point later (it could have been hours or just seconds, Annabeth doesn't really know) someone enters her apartment—and Annabeth vaguely thinks that she should hide the key under the doormat in a different place. But then she remembers that she keeps it there because Percy always forgets his key.

She sees Percy walk through the door, slip the key back under the doormat. She sees him take off his shoes and walk right over to the fridge. She hears him call for her, he tells her that he's home. He's home. And safe.

Annabeth blinks and he's gone.

But surely he can't be gone. He can't just not be there anymore. Not smiling, not laughing, not breathing, not living. He can't just vanish. That's impossible.

He can't he can't he can't he can't.

She didn't get to say goodbye. She didn't tell him she loves him.

Suddenly the air isn't getting to her lungs, and she wonders if this is what it feels like to choke on misery.

Her lungs are burning. Her chest is on fire. She screams at someone to put out the flames. They lick up and down her throat. She feels the heat from the tips of her toes to her core. Someone needs to help her.

She knows the statistic. 9 million to 1. There's a one in nine million chance that a person goes down in a plane. Percy is _not_ that one. He can't be.

He is. She knows it.

Annabeth has always been one to face the facts. She has always said that honesty is the best policy, that it's better to be brutally truthful than hide reality out of fear of hurting someone's feelings.

She sits in front of the news. She hears the television reporters announce that Flight 143 from JFK to San Francisco crashed over Pennsylvania. They say that officials have reported no survivors. Annabeth hadn't even bothered to get her hopes up. She already knew.

The television reporter says that the reason for the crash is being investigated, and that a follow-up will occur later in the day.

Later that day, officials report 168 dead. 17 children. 151 adults. That's all Percy is now. A statistic. One out of 151. 1 out of 168 out of 1512 million.

Cause of crash still unknown. The reporter says it in a sad tone, which makes Annabeth bitter. Furious. She has no right to be upset. She didn't lose anyone in the crash. She doesn't _get _to be sad. She doesn't _get _to pretend for television because her job requires it.

She doesn't _have _to understand what it's like to lose your soul mate. Your true love. Your best friend. Your second half.

_How fitting,_ Annabeth thinks, _that I_ _should lose all in one._


End file.
